Have You Ever
by meruhen
Summary: Yukimura wonders.


**Title:** Have You Ever?

**Fandom:** Prince of Tennis

**Character(s) or Pairing:** Yukimura/Sanada/Yanagi

**Rating:** PG

**Warnings:** Future-fic, speculation

**Word Count:** 1118

**Summary:** Yukimura wonders

**-**

"Have you ever wondered what things would have been like if we hadn't gone to Rikkai?" Yukimura asked, looking up from his cup to the other two people sitting with him, lovers both, friends for even longer.

"You are drunk," Yanagi announced, propping his head on his hand to stare across the table to Yukimura. "The only time you ever start waxing nostalgic and wondering what could have happened is when you're not sober."

"I am sober enough," Yukimura told him, trying to muster an indignant tone and failing – he sounded rather petulant, there. "Tell Renji, Genichirou, that I am not drunk."

"He's right, Seiichi," the last member of the party replied. "You bring up that topic every time you start drinking."

"Have we ever answered it?"

"No." It's Yanagi's turn to reply. "We usually end up deflecting your attention and focusing on something else. Did you know Akaya is returning tomorrow?"

Yukimura frowned. "I know he is, he told me. But have the two of you ever considered the fact that I ask this question each time we're drinking because I want an answer." Yukimura didn't miss the look exchanged between the two and his frown grew until he was scowling at his long-time friends.

"Honestly, no," Sanada replied, "we don't wonder about such a thing. There's no point in wondering about it."

"There's no need to speculate about the past, so we don't."

Yukimura groaned and wished, not for the first time, he was dating people who were more suited to philosophical meanderings, because for all the intelligence they both had, neither were big on speculation or dreaming, sticking to the world and hard, cold facts. Even Yanagi, for all that he preferred novels and philosophy to the sciences his friend favored, was not a dreamer.

"Well start wondering. I want an answer – what would it be like if we hadn't met at Rikkai?"

"We'd not be here," Sanada offered. "But there are too many other possibilities to take into consideration."

"Would we have met in high school or in college, or wandered upon each other by chance?" Yanagi continued when Sanada paused. "There are a thousand possibilities, far too many to speculate on."

"But if you look at it, what happened there is what brought us closer, proved we could weather any storms," Yukimura said; he straightened up and looked at his companions again, studying them. "There have been other things that have happened to us since then, but those were resolved with little problem." If one considered weeks of silence on behalf of all of them, brooding and anger, fights and conflict resolving problems no trouble, that was true, and for Yukimura – as long as they were together, nothing else mattered – it was. "We grew closer after I was in the hospital."

Mostly because all three of them had realized the impermanence of life with the events that had happened; together they were thrown from a world that was just tennis into something much bigger, much more complex and wonderful for all of the tragedy that could happen.

"But that is not to say…" Yanagi began, only to swallow his words when Yukimura glanced at him. "You are not as drunk as you normally are," he said instead, opening his eyes to look at Yukimura fully. "Were you ever as drunk as we thought you were, all those times you asked that question?"

"Of course not. I have learned to hold my alcohol better than the two of you. But it's always fun to let you think I am completely gone."

Sanada sighed and shook his head and turned his head to glare at Yukimura. "You probably giggled over it that night."

"I didn't," Yukimura assured him. "I always thought your concern was adorable and it was unappreciated. I just never needed it. But that's not the point here." Yukimura frowned again. "You are certainly good at distracting me. Have you ever wondered why we met in Rikkai?

"Renji, you shouldn't have been there at all; you wouldn't have been, if not for a chance move. And Genichirou you had no plans of joining the tennis team. So why – why there, of all places, and why not later, if there are so many other places or opportunities for us to have met?"

After Yukimura's mini-speech, Yanagi glanced at Sanada once again, unable to find any words to reply; Sanada wordlessly shook his head, left in the same speechless state. There was some comfort in that, knowing that Yukimura had the same affect on them both, the same affect that he'd had on them since the beginning of time.

It was Yanagi who, finally, cleared his throat and broke the silence that had descended over their table.

"Is there really any point in wondering about that?" Yanagi asked. "Because we have no answer for that, anymore than we have an answer what would have happened if we hadn't gone to Rikkai."

"No sappy 'It's Fate' rejoinders?" Yukimura asked, archly. "I was expecting that from one of you."

"None of us believe in such a thing, however," Sanada responded. "We would betray our own natures, and sully them, if we answered with that. Would you want that, Seiichi?"

"No. I was testing you. But I still think there is something that placed us all there, then, to grow and adapt together."

"Even if it was something that placed us there, then it was us who influenced our future, simply from the decisions we made and our actions." That came from Yanagi, who raised his head finally, letting his hand drop to the table.

"Because we were drawn to each other," Sanada continued from where Yanagi stopped, finally getting to the point. "Perhaps it wasn't something that placed us there, but our own natures that drew us into each other, forces circling to make us all whole."

Yanagi felt Yukimura touch his hand, but it didn't really make an impact, too busy staring at Sanada, slow comprehension dawning in both of their eyes. He felt the laughter bubble up inside his throat, but like the soft touch on his hand, it didn't hit him that he was laughing until the sound echoed back in his ears.

"Will you ever cease to surprise?" Yanagi asked, biting down on his lip to stop his laughter, one glance at Sanada telling him the other was wondering the same thing.

"I hope not. It's what drew in both of you. How else will I keep you?"

"There's no need to worry about that." Sanada spoke for both he and Yanagi this time. "It wasn't just the element of surprise that drew us to you. It was that and a lot more."


End file.
